You are hereForums / Preparation / Geek Gear (GPS/Comps/Lights/etc.) / LED Lights
LED Lights
I'm looking seriously at lights, and my dream would be a set of K-Lites. http://www.klite.com.au/ But at $729 for a set, that won't happen too soon.
On the other end of the spectrum is the following (which includes free shipping). A work mate ordered some LED torches through this website & has been really happy with them.
http://www.ledsupermall.com/cree-xm-l-t6-1000-lu...
What kind of experiences have you guys had with cheap/expensive lights? If a $39 light lasted through winter, then blew up, I'd still be happy!
[Mod. moved to geek gear]
- Login to post comments
- Bookmark & share
get it then - youll be happy. personally i've had the magicshine version for 3years now, and they still go, though i've replaced both batteries. recommend getting 2 for offroad - one for helmet, one for bar.
Nowhere near as good as Kerry's, but the cost of kerry's are reflective of the efficiency and ability to go all night
The difference between the top of the line lights and the cheaper ones is not as great as it once was. Brightness is not so much an issue as weight. You need to have two lights, a handlebar light and a helmet mounted one. The helmet one needs to be as light as possible otherwise it'll cause your helmet to slide around on your head. Your set-up will last a lot longer with a good quality charger. Cheap chargers are the death of re-chargeable batteries.
...are the ubiquitous Ay-ups:
http://www.ayup-lights.com/systems/lighting-syst...
There's a reason why even the K-lites use beam-pattern comparisons against a set of Ay-ups - because they're friggin' awesome. I bought mine for adventure racing, and now they get used for everything from short night runs to 24-hour rogaines.
One of the differences between top of the range and lower down is beam spread. My 3-4yo AyUps are still excellent for fire trail use but the narrow hotspot shows its weaknesses in twisty singletrack. At this years Mont I really struggled on my night lap in quite a few sections and had to back right off.
A wider beam spread would have been a real hekp on the descending switchbacks to help fill in the mid and foreground through the corner for my peripheral vision leaving the helmet spot to scan further down the trail.
Wider spread requires a lot more power output otherwise it's too dim.
Magic shine's etc are good initially but the charging circuitry and moisture proofing is woefully inadequate. A few months of use and they give up.
My batteries have now all been replaced by individually regulated LiPo type cell packs and they've proved reliable.
If you're not the sort of person that modifies & tweaks stuff buy something good out of the box like the Aye Ups or Hid tech stuff.
You pays your money......
All the best
T
I personally have a pair of ay-ups and love them.
However I recently saw an advert in AMB for Ferei lights.
See www.ferei.com.au
$229 for 1600 lumen lights.
If you have 18volt battery tools, just buy a 12v LED downlight globe and hook it up to your battery. I used a osram 10W LED, over ran it on 18v to give me 22.5W, its bright as fuck and only cost me $33. Here it is...
http://youtu.be/Nybi1v4XVio
Hey Slinker, did you make that entire housing yourself? Impressive light!
I'm sure that battery would last a few hours too!
Those ferei's look interesting. Wondwr if you can get beefier batteries... 90 minutes at full burn is a bit on the short side. Had a good look thru the chinese website and found no mention.
I'm also interested to know what the beam spread is like. The photos seem to show a distinct ay-yp like hotspot.
There's an interesting 4-emitter unit Cell Bikes had that looked awesome for the bars at under $200. Great beam spread and teamed with a 900 lumen helmet unit you'd be set I reckon. The.flying.al had this for the Mont and his night laps were as quick as his day laps, if i recall correctly.
That housing is just the heat sink that is part of the globe, it's just cable tied to the reflector mount. The battery is 3 amp hours so would last about 2.5 hours I think, havnt tested it that long yet.
A few things I've discovered...
1) This link leads to an interesting read. http://edridesbikes.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/on-...
2) I did order a cheap $39 light. I also purchased an expensive $280 Cygolite Tridon 750X.
3) Remember the triangle. Rules still apply.
**********************************************
http://www.ledsupermall.com/3-x-cree-xp-g-r5-160...
This $39 light has actually worked for me quite well. It comes with a battery that hasn't died yet, & a handlebar clamp this is almost passable. However, the claimed '1600' lumen is nowhere near as bright OR has a decent light spread like my nice Cygolite '750' lumens.
Result: If you are serious about lights, don't get 2 cheap ones. I'm quite happy with a cheap one on the handlebars & the awesome Cygolite on my helmet. Fellow club members with Cygolites have had their batteries last 2 years easily already with no sign of death near.
Agree with that article ^^
What i run:
2x 1600lm flood lights on the bars connected to 1x ~9600mAh bottle battery.
1x 1200lm spot on my helmet on a smaller ~4000mAh battery
Spare small battery (sometimes)
Emergency Cateye light
Things ive learnt:
-Lumen rating means nothing, but is good to compare lights. Convenient since they all usually lie by the same amount.
-I run much bigger batteries than i need. 1.) because I don't want to get stuck an hour from the car without lights. 2.) As said, lithium based batteries will last FAR longer if you discharge them less. They love being topped up constantly, and a great way to kill them is by draining them 100%.
-RUN 2 COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT SETUPS!!!!
Sounds obvious, but if you are doing semi serious night riding (especially by yourself if you don't have any friends like me). Having your only light, cable, battery die 2 hours out can mean a long night in the bush.
-Its ok to run a cheap light as long as they use good (usually cree) LED's
-Its not ok to run a cheap battery. Don't skimp. Anything with panasonic cells is a good start, but the circuit is just as important.
-mAh rating: Higher isn't always better (on the same size cell at least). China brands do this by using less insulation in the cell. Sure they can cram more chemicals in, but current leakage causes the battery to discharge much faster when not in use, and this can kill your lithium battery if you haven't used it for a few months.
Also as noted, a lot of these lights push the LEDS VERY hard, this makes them hot, and especially china brands are often a little light on the cooling. Most lights will have over heat protection and dim the lights, but thats the last thing you need on some sweet DH.
To combat this...
-Turn your lights down on slow sections. Slow hills will provide little cooling, but also require much less light. I see far too many people running 3 lights flat-out doing 8km/hr up a fire trail.
-If you stop, turn your lights off (duh)
-Ride faster to get more cooling
I always say that the charger should cost at least as much as the batteries. A cheap charger can kill a good set of batteries.
Agree you gotta get the right charger, but for lithium batteries at least, ive found the chargers to be pretty cheap.
The genuine magic shine chargers are ~$15, and its the charger they recommend for the $100+ bottle battery i use.
Having said that, a combination of bad battery or charger is probably a good way to burn your house down.
Lithium batteries are a voltage type charger which is similar to the battery in your car in that as it gets closer to the charger voltage the current drops off. NiCads are a current type charger which forces a current in and although there is a slight voltage rise as it reaches full capacity it can be hard to detect, which often leads to overcharging.
With the K-lite you can get away with just 1 on the helmet.
The K-lite is bright has enough punch that with running the 1 on the helmet you don't lose depth projection like you did like the old day of halogen where you needed on one helmet and one on bars.
The wider beam also gives you good peripheral
Was going to say this previously but i figured ive rambled enuf
I've run pretty much every combination of lights trying to get a setup that works for me.
Problem i have with a single helmet light is not the brightness, but shadows.
Shadows give a better 3D image. On a bar mount, the light is below your eyes, so any rock etc will have a visible shadow behind it. When I ran a cheap single helmet light, the output was only just acceptable (single LED), but more importantly, with the light above my eyes, no obstacle had a shadow that i could see. So especially at speed, everything just looked flat to me and i was clobbering over everything. Im not saying everyone who runs a single helmet light is wrong or slow, it just didn't work for me.
The combination of 2 bar lights and 1 helmet means there is always a rear shadow, but thanks to the 2 bar lights, deep parallel ruts can be lit so evenly I don't realise im riding in one until my front or rear starts sliding in.
Anyway, to each their own, but also remember a backup system
At the Mont 24 it was a requirement to have 2 independent light systems in case of failure of one.
That said, one poor soul was stuck out there for awhile with both lights out ... and I still feel guilty about not going back and leading him out. LOL!
Woulda been freezing
I went for a ride up into the hills on Wednesday night & found a huge storm. One of my favourite rides yet! Huge lightning, heavy rain, & even mini flash flood. 15-20cm wall of water came rolling down the hill. Amazing.
However, the cheap Chinese light died very quickly in the wet conditions. It did last me all winter, but I'll be investing in a better quality light next time. Now that I've had one for a while, I wouldn't recommend one. Before it shorted out in the rain, the battery life had already diminished greatly.
The Cygolite however was brilliant. Didn't miss a beat. I don't regret buying it for a moment.
Battery life can be prolonged by correct charge when stored, a good charger, and by storing away from heat. Running them to dead flat is bad for them too.
I read somewhere that if you know you're not going to use a battery for a while, you should...
Charge it to around 50%.
Put it in the fridge.
Has anyone else heard this? I can't remember where I read it.
Lithium Ion batteries have very different requirements to Nickel type batteries. You need to read up on the type of battery you have.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_t...